


How We Are

by LilydaleXF



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:36:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7411460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully talk about William and love. Well, mostly Mulder talks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anjou for ace beta reading that helped make this story better.

“Do you think he knows we love him?” Scully asks Mulder with her eyes downcast.

“William?”

She nods assent. She can hardly bear to say his name, which breaks her heart. She can’t comprehend how it must shard Mulder’s heart, feeling like he can’t say it either because he thinks her hearing it will hurt her too much. He hasn’t said he feels that way or that she makes him feel like he has to tiptoe around her, but she knows, she knows.

And it is shattering to hear Mulder say his name with any frequency, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t ever want to hear her son’s name from his father’s mouth.

“Yes,” Mulder says without hesitation. “Yes, he knows.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of how we are.”

“But he doesn’t know us, Mulder,” she whimpers. She’d like to think that she does not ever approach a tone of whimpering. But she definitely whimpered just now, which cracks her heart further.

“But we know each other.”

“Mulder, I don’t see how--”

“Do you know how much I love you?”

She huffs out a laughed breath. His eyes grow dewy. He doesn’t say more.

Clearly her gesture is offensive, puffing doubt in his face, but that didn’t stop her from doing it. Sometimes, like now, she feels like she hardly knows herself. _It’s Mulder_ , she thinks. _He’s your years-long, bone-deep, one and only best friend_.

She reaches up a hand and softly caresses his cheek in apology.

“I might know, Mulder.”

“You do know, Scully.”

“I know,” she whispers. Why is it so hard to acknowledge? _Years-long_ , she thinks again.

Her hand had dropped from his face very soon after she touched it. It fell to her knee, where it is now covered by Mulder’s large, warm palm.

She thought his eyes were the ones that had become moist, but maybe it’s hers. She hates herself for being this delicate, this prone to one sweet verbal offering from Mulder. _Only from Mulder_ , she thinks, which brings an odd sort of comfort.

“I even know how you feel,” he says. “I think.”

Her eyes are, as they have mostly been since they started talking, focused away from him. “How?”

“You’re asking me to explain how you feel, Scully? I don’t think I can articulate that in any safe way.”

He’s grinning. She knows it without looking at him. She sneaks a look up at him anyway, and yes, the corners of his mouth are curled up slightly and his eyes have a spark.

“No, Mulder. I meant, how do you know?”

He doesn’t get cross or question her questioning. He is so dear. When he is not being a death-courting nuisance. Which is often. Her heart swells at this man who is tethered to her life. She flips her hand so their palms now touch.

“Because of how we are,” he offers. “Like I said before.”

She looks up at him but doesn’t say anything.

“You don’t have to explain yourself for me to know, Scully.”

“But maybe I do have to explain, Mulder. Because I never do.” Can he possibly understand what she’s saying? What she’s not saying?

“You do explain, Scully, just not always out loud. Or maybe never out loud. But that’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah.”

“But you say you love me sometimes.”

“Not sometimes, Scully. I love you all the time.”

She squeezes his hand.

He squeezes back as he asks, “Do I have to say it more for you to remember, to believe me?”

She shakes her head no. There are many things Mulder says that she cannot believe are actually true, but she never doubts how much he sincerely believes everything he says. Except when he’s lying, which she has learned to quickly identify. _Years-long, bone-deep_.

She considers that her respect for his devotion, and her devotion to him that it inspires in turn, may be the sort of thing she should perhaps note out loud to him more than every lifetime or so. He doesn’t give her the chance just now.

“Do I misunderstand you, Scully?”

Of course not. She shakes her head no again.

“Then there you go. William knows.”

She raises her eyebrows without needing to voice the “What?” that she knows they say to him.

“You told him how you feel, how we both feel. Over and over in your arms, holding him, rocking him, soothing him, having your caring eyes be the last thing he saw every day before falling asleep. He knew. He’s us, Scully, so he still knows though I’m not there infrequently and inadequately expressing it and he’s without your invariable, perfect demonstrations.”

“It is so disconcerting when you make sense, Mulder.”

“Good thing it hardly happens then.”

“I’ll say.”

There’s a pause between them before he shifts the mood back and quietly asks, “You’ll say what, Scully?”

She raises her hand under his until her parted lips mark his hand with a soft kiss.

“Me too, Scully. All the time.”


End file.
